Donald Trump may be having his Joe Biden moment as one of the greatest legislative priorities of his second term, a bill that would establish national voter ID requirements, seemed on course to die on the Senate floor.
The bill, known as the SAVE Act, narrowly cleared a Tuesday procedural vote with every Democrat in opposition and one Republican, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, joining them. With the numbers clearly against Senate leadership and the president, the impending failure of the bill presents a familiar problem for Trump. For the second time as president and mirroring the political failure of Biden’s “Build Back Better” agenda as well, Trump is on course to see a Republican Congress reject his legislative agenda.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune reiterated that sufficient support doesn’t exist within his caucus to kill the legislative filibuster to make it easier to pass the bill, and declined at a press conference to treat the issue with any kind of frenzied urgency.
The Republican leader responded to a remark from one of Trump’s supporters in the chamber, Sen. Mike Lee, who called for Republicans voting against the bill to be primaried. Thune rejected that premise, stating that he preferred his members to fight Democrats, not members of the GOP.
“We may not agree on everything, but I'm more in favor of ensuring that we have Republicans holding these seats in the Senate than handing them to Democrats,” he said.
Trump and his allies, however, do not appear to be receptive to that message.
On Tuesday, Trump reiterated on Truth Social: “I WILL NEVER (EVER!) ENDORSE ANYONE WHO VOTES AGAINST “SAVE AMERICA!!!”
His continued anger over the issue raises a simple question: What will the president do when this legislation inevitably fails on the Senate floor?
That question is one that lurks in the back of the minds of Thune and other Republicans such as Sen. Tim Scott, head of the GOP’s Senate campaign arm, as the 2026 midterm cycle continues.
Just one Republican senator, Murkowski, is currently open in her opposition to the SAVE Act and voted against it on Tuesday — but Trump has already refused to grant his endorsement to two sitting GOP senators facing fierce primaries this year, Sens. John Cornyn and Bill Cassidy. Trump could use their vote in the SAVE Act against them in his endorsements - or take his anger with the whole party over a failed bill out on any incumbent by endorsing a challenger.
Former Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell is one of the Republicans reportedly still deciding his final vote, though the Kentucky senator voted to bring the legislation to the floor on Tuesday. McConnell is one of Trump’s oldest rivals in the Senate, and his defiance could be seen by the president as another personal slight if it occurs.
One Republican senator well acquainted with Trump’s revenge-seeking complained to CNN’s Manu Raju over the weekend and blamed far-right Republicans for seeking legislative policy wins for which Republicans simply didn’t have the numbers to achieve. Those unrealistic expectations, Sen. Thom Tillis reasoned, were resulting in furious intra-party fights and messaging disunity.
“People on my side of the aisle and people at the far-right of the political spectrum are trying to swing for the fences and they’re not going to succeed,” said Tillis, referring to the SAVE Act.
“I get tired of Republicans being lazy and unstrategic,” the North Carolina senator added.
His remarks follow Trump’s own threat to ignore any other legislation that reaches his desk until the SAVE Act passes, including a potential deal to reopen the Department of Homeland Security. DHS has been in shutdown mode since February, when the Democratic caucuses in both chambers of Congress demanded reforms to ICE in exchange for votes to fund the entire agency.
In short, a new kind of self-imposed gridlock could descend on Capitol Hill if Donald Trump can’t get over his latest political defeat.
What happens next? The most likely answer is what happened last time Trump suffered a major political defeat before a midterm election cycle, when his party’s efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act ended in failure in 2017. Democrats went on to win dozens of House seats the following year.
At least for now, Trump has succeeded in doing what his enemies sought to do throughout all of 2025: Fracture the MAGA coalition in Congress, while bringing his squabbling opponents together.
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